The prior art shows a flat material fed into a belt which drives the material into a rolled package, and wherein the package is of a spiral cross section. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,964,235 and 3,911,641. The belt drive wraps around the rolled package and engages the outside surface of the material. The object of the packaging device is to wind the rolled package spiral as tight as practicle so that the finished package takes up the least volume. One common method of ensuring a tight spiral within the rolled package is to maintain the tension of the belt to compress the material as it is fed into the packaging machinery. However, this method does not offer any direct correlation between the tension applied and the size of the package as it grows, reaching its final diameter.